


Breaking Point

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: The Red Paladin's Double [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Coran is a genius, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9374057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: I just didn't want to explain this all in the notes, so here you are.





	1. Like the Death of a Butterfly

“All paladins to the command center, we have a message from the Galra!” Shiana darted out of her room, nearly running into Shiro as she did.

            “What’s going on?”

            “I don’t know, that’s all we got, just that message.” They raced into the command center where a large Galra face was on the view screen. A few minutes later Keith showed up, but none of the other paladins did. Shiana darted a side glance at him. Ever since they’d escaped from the Galra, he had been different. More distant, even less willing to talk than before. More ruthless. They had run into some aliens that had betrayed them, and Keith had killed them. After they had surrendered. They had been on their knees, begging for mercy, and Keith had cut them down. Shiana wasn’t sure she liked this new Keith. In fact, she was almost positive she didn’t. Allura waited a couple more minutes before playing the video.

            “Paladins of Voltron and Altean survivors: you are going to surrender the lions to me. I know you don’t think you should, but if you don’t…” The screen moved. A shot of an energy cage. With Keith inside. The commander bared his teeth at the camera in a gruesome smile. “You’ve got an imposter on board. I suggest you hand over the lions before either I kill the true red paladin, or the fake kills you. You have twenty-four hours. Time’s ticking.” The screen shut off and all four of the people watching turned to look at Keith. He was holding a gun and had it pointed right at Shiro. Shiana watched, everything moving in slow motion as it fired, hitting Shiro right in the chest. He jerked and fell. There was a dart embedded in his chest. Suddenly the absence of Hunk, Lance and Pidge was explained. Shiana screamed and tackled him, the gun clattering out of his hand.

            “What are you? What did you do to him?” he had a smug little smile on his face, even tackled on the ground.

            “I’m a clone, of course. Created while the real Keith was captured. Being a clone, of course I have the same quintessence as him, so Red couldn’t tell. I will never tell you anything else though. Not unless you turn in the lions.” She narrowed her eyes.

            “Tell me, or I’ll rip the answer out of your head and I promise it won’t be fun,” she growled. He laughed. Her grip tightened and she studied her gloves.

            “I wonder,” she snarled, “How much electricity your body can handle before it explodes. Want to find out?”

            “You won’t risk the explosion. After all, you still need me.” Her gaze narrowed.

            “Yes, but I wonder how much mental pain you can take.” His eyes widened in fear, before he started to scream, hands clawing at imaginary foes.

            “No! Make it stop! I didn’t… No!”

            “Tell me!” Allura tried to stop her, but she couldn’t. Every time she got within five feet, her mind decided this was a bad idea, and her feet stopped walking. The same was happening with Coran. Shiana was unconsciously manipulating them into staying away while she interrogated the clone. The screaming intensified.

            “Tell me!”

            “It’s just a tranquilizer! They’ll be out for three weeks, but then they’ll wake up! Please, stop it!”

            “They? You tranquilized the others?”

            “Yes! Please, please stop the pain.”

            “Where is Keith?”

            “I’ll never tell you that!” Her eyes turned to slits and he screamed again.

            “Tell me!”

            “No!”

            “Let’s try something else.” He screamed again, this time a different scream, Shiana was manipulating him differently, even worse than before. He was writhing in her grasp, screaming so loud Allura expected his lungs to burst. She gave up trying to reach Shiana and just pressed her face to Coran’s chest, and he held her, covering her ears from the screams. But she could hear them anyway. Tears were streaming from the clone’s eyes.

            “Tell me!”

            “Never!” Her eyebrows scrunched up tight, and he gave one earsplitting shriek before he started to babble out things.

            “In the Drexian system, that’s where they are, stop it stop it, stop all the voices, all the voices, stop it, no, I didn’t, honest, no, please don’t hurt me, time’s ticking, time’s ticking, better move, time’s ticking, get out of here, out, out, out.” Allura stared at him in horror. Shiana had driven him mad. Absolutely nuts. As the shock faded away he started to giggle. He counted his toes, counted his fingers then frowned and started to count again while singing ‘twinkle, twinkle little star.’

            Shiana stormed away, Allura following.

            “Where are you going?”

            “Drexian system. It’s not very far.”

            “You don’t even have a plan, or support!”

            “Go in. rescue Keith. There’s my plan. Red’s my support. All sorted.”

            “You can’t just do this!”

            “Watch me.”

            “What if they catch you?”

            “They won’t.”

            “Don’t walk through that door!” She did anyway. “Rrrgh. She can be just as thick-skulled as Keith sometimes.” The red lion blasted off.

            “Red lion approaching, sir.”

            “Do we know who’s flying?”

            “No sir. Red lion, this is the Galra mother ship. Who’s flying?” He jerked back from the head set.

            “Well?”

            “She just told me to-”

            Shiana finished telling the Galra communication officer _exactly_ what she thought of him and opened fire. The heat beam activated and she cut her way into the ship. She watched robots get sucked into the vacuum of space with satisfaction before steering Red into the hole and climbing out of her mouth. Her armor had been sabotaged by that creep so she was wearing Keith’s, which finally fit her. She activated his sword and began slicing. The robots fell like flies before her onslaught. She fought her way past them and walked into the next room. Keith. Trapped in the energy shackles. Hurt, alone. White hot anger flooded though her, and suddenly the small army between them seemed insignificant. She roared and began to cut through the robots. A stray shot hit her right in her right shoulder. She looked at it, then at the robot who’d shot it. She stabbed him through and kept going, not feeling any pain. She was practically glowing with power and fury, all but physically. Another laser hit her, right in the stomach. She didn’t even notice. She just ripped off the head of the robot who did it. She looked around, still pulsing with adrenaline. All of her enemies were dead. She slapped a timed bomb on the engine, and went to her friend, partner, brother. She looked at the machine. The cold, analyzing part of her determined that it was designed to send an electrical impulse through Keith every time he moved, or his heart rate went up. The rest of her didn’t care what it did, it was _hurting her brother._ She flooded the machine with so much electricity, so fast that none of it got through to Keith, it just shorted out and Keith dropped into her arms. Fresh adrenalin of anger flooded her senses again when she saw his beaten face. And his eyes, so dull, so lacking of life. Of course, being Keith, he would have struggled, his heart would have accelerated from the pure anger he’d felt at his captors, and the machine would have punished him. She kissed his forehead gently.

            “Don’t worry, alien boy, we’ll get out of this.” She carried him, carried him like a baby all the way to the red lion, who roared at his condition. Shiana sat down in the pilot seat, still holding Keith in her arms.

            “Shiana…” he mumbled so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him, “Shiana…” He touched her shoulder and stomach, his eyes not quite focusing, not understanding. “You’re bleeding. You got a cut.” The enormity of what she had done caught up to her, and the adrenalin faded. Pain took its place, and she gasped, the blood loss making her dizzy. Her head was swimming, and she slumped, unconscious in her seat, the red lion’s voice fading in and out of her head.

            _Shiana! Shiana! No, don’t… and she’s gone. Great. Keith? No? Yeah, didn’t think so._ She was alone, both her paladins either unconscious or too weak to drive. She would just have to drive herself. And she did, with Shiana’s time bomb going off and the ship blowing up behind her. She thought she looked pretty cool, flying away from the explosion majestically. Too bad no one was here to see it. Well, time to get these two breakable kittens home.

            “Red! What’s the matter?” the red lion opened her mouth and Allura took that as permission to run in. Inside, miraculously, were both Shiana and Keith.

            “Allura! I think… I think there’s something wrong with Shiana.” _Understatement of the year, Keith,_ was Allura’s thought upon seeing the Neconian’s condition. But she didn’t really blame him. After all, he had been through a lot. He tried to get up, but his legs wobbled and he fell on his face. Allura thought, to herself, that it was probably good that Lance was tranquilized, and not here to see him. Coran ran in and picked up Shiana, running back to the sick bay. Allura hoped it wasn’t too late. She had lost a lot of blood. She helped Keith to his feet. He still looked a little disoriented, and she wasn’t entirely sure he could walk, but she let him go by himself, sure he didn’t want to be seen as weak. He grabbed her arm, his expression pleading.

            “Don’t leave me. Please?” Allura mentally chided herself. He’d just been held by the Galra for x amount of days going through who knew what kind of torture. Of _course_ he wouldn’t want to be left alone. He’d want assurance, to know that someone was there. She slung one of his arms around her shoulder and supported him.

            “Of _course_ Keith. What _ever_ you need. I’m here for you.”


	2. Calculations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just didn't want to explain this all in the notes, so here you are.

Coran watched the two teenagers floating in the cyro pods next to each other. He couldn’t believe it. Shiana had blown up a _whole warship_ by herself because of two things: her friends being tranquilized and Keith being captured. Imagine what would happen if her friends were _really_ in danger. The analytical part of his brain made him frown and tug on his mustache. But they had been in greater danger. Yet she hadn’t gone… nuclear on their captors. He realized that she had hit her breaking point as he surveyed her entire life.

Seventeen to eighteen years as a slave. Just one had been enough to make Shiro hit his breaking point. In which he had probably destroyed somebody in the arena, but he would have been contained. Her father had been killed, her mother and brother taken away. X number of years alone, but forced to interact with people, even if she didn’t want to. Keith’s breaking point. Her best friend had been killed. Keith’s breaking point again? Coran wasn’t quite sure if Keith was just pugnacious or was really fragile. Who knew? He just had to take one look at the last three months of her life, the three months they had been in it, and everything made sense in that respect. Those three months had been probably both the best months of her life and living hell at the same time. He thought on it. Why had she gone nuclear, though? Keith and Shiro seemed to have been fairly mild reactions, Pidge seemed to have just taken it out on garbage and made dummies of them. Slightly creepy, yes, but not overly awful. If Hunk had ever had a breaking point it was fairly mild, although Coran was sure that neither he nor Lance had hit theirs yet. So what had made Shiana explode and take on a battleship?

Then it hit him. When everybody else had hit breaking point they had been fairly helpless teenagers with nothing to help them. Shiana had hit hers with advanced neurology and a superweapon of a lion. She had basically been a super powered teenager hitting a mood swing. Of _course_ she’d exploded. And driven an object of her displeasure to a gibbering wreck. And blown up a war station. Wow. Coran remembered his own breaking point. When his wife and son had died he’d gotten into a jet and destroyed so many drones the battle had tipped their way and Coran had been awarded a medal of bravery. But King Alfor had known the truth, and he’d consoled a broken Coran, keeping him from going insane. He’d nursed Coran back emotionally, and Coran had sworn to protect his daughter in gratitude. And he had. He knew that when Shiana woke up she would be in a fragile state emotionally. But he also knew that he, Allura and the paladins would all be there to help her through this. And she _would_ heal and be an even stronger paladin than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Coran. He is beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> The chapter name the death of a butterfly was supposed to be symbolic of Shiana losing her childishness and growing up


End file.
